Dive right in: Artifacts will fill lake

The giant sand pit where the remains of a mammoth and saber-toothed tiger were once discovered may soon be filled with more modern artifacts.

[Click image for a larger version] PAT SULLIVAN/AP
AP
This huge mask is at a Clute, Texas, sand pit, which will be turned into a diving lake. The mask will be in the seascape.

There are plans to throw in a bus, a couple of antique firetrucks and even a space shuttle look-alike that once thrilled visitors at the now defunct Astroworld amusement park in Houston.

Developers are hoping the items and many others – including an old F-5 Navy jet already in the 50-acre pit – will help create one of the nation’s largest lakes reserved for scuba divers seeking to explore large objects.

“This is a dream come true,” Mike Cryer, who runs Hydrosports Scuba Shop in nearby Lake Jackson, said as he gazed over a hole as deep as 70 feet. By next year it should be at least partially filled with water and become Mammoth Lake. “We’re in such a unique position. No one has ever started a dive lake from the ground up. They’ve always inherited a hole of water.”

Dive right in: Artifacts will fill lake